Canvas Constellations
by soaring-smiles
Summary: The dusk steals in, her lipgloss wears off and she keeps his coat. It looks ridiculous, hanging down onto the ground, sleeves drowning her arms.


**Written for challenge 007 at then_theres_us, a livejournal doctor/rose comm. Now edited to meet teen standards. I suppose if you ****_really_**** want you can find the adult-rated scene at then_theres_us, but it's not very necessary to the story, I just think it's nice.**

**Just also wanted to thank everybody who's reviewed so far on all my stories. It really is lovely to know people appreciate my stories.**

* * *

_Do you have stars_

_in your mouth?_

_she asks_

_and I laugh,_

_she's never tasted_

_winter like I have,_

_midnights that linger_

_for days. Yes,_

_I tell her. Come see._

* * *

He supposes when he said _camp out_ he meant compensation, and _stars and forests_ can somehow be translated into a somewhat belated apology.

It's fine, she knows what he means; they just both choose to ignore it.

So this is it then, trees and ground and the dirt, moss-green and tinted brown. He has a tent and she has her pocket knife and they're going to be just fine.

"I can't find the blade," she says and he forgets how to put the pole in the canvas.

They are not going to be just fine.

* * *

She gets her bum wet on a convenient log across from him, cleaning the dirt out from under her nails. Her legs are crossed and damp sneakers peek out from the ends of her frayed jeans.

He gets his pinstripes wet on the leaves where he's shoving Tab A into Slot B, knees aching and fingers so cold they're numb. The canvas is itching his skin, straps imprinting themselves on his palms.

"Are you done?" comes her voice, bored and slow and decidedly probably not impressed, maybe. There's a rustle as she drops the knife and then bends to pick it up, line of her jumper falling open.

The tent snaps back and hits him in the eye.

"God fucking _dammit_," he says.

It starts raining.

* * *

Rose is wrapped in his coat, hair wound around her fingers as she picks the knots. The air is sinking its claws into him, wet cotton soaked to his body, droplets hanging off his nose. Ice seems to be twining around his blood, freezing his veins and paralysing his movement.

He looks at her. The tent groans, half standing, half leaning against a tree. "We could-"

Her eyes spark and teeth dig into her lip stubbornly. God why does she _do_ that, Rassilon it's not even _fair_-

"I want. A camp out."

And it's his apology and his giving and her taking, as opposed to when he uses her innocence to see the beauty again-so it's only a balanced exchange.

There are too many types of love, and he's not even sure what the aching, awful pain is in his chest when her shoulder brushes his.

Something he ate, maybe.

* * *

So he had the thing upside down, and that's fixed, and she has only one sleeping bag and-

god god too close but won't it feel good with her next to him-no _no stop it_

that's fine. He even has a dinky little camping stove with fuel and a metal bowl and a packet of pasta that doesn't taste good uncooked, as it turns out.

"Good outdoorsy food, Rose," he proclaims loudly. She sinks down next to him, staring at the utensils and sauce and slightly unstable Trangia.

"We could swing for chips," she says hopefully, and he has to remind her this is North America and therefore it's _fries_ she wants. And secondly, he programmed the TARDIS to return on Saturday for a reason.

"And what was that?" she asks pointedly.

Images play run-around in his head and probably sixty-six percent are filthy, and the other forty-four are sad.

He thinks of her collapsing into her mother's arms, and then her standing motionless in Mickey's flat, staring at a crinkled photo of them on the counter.

"Who doesn't love nature?" he says, and then spreads his arms wide. "Trees and flowers and...and..._animals_..." He stares at her, manic grin fading when she crosses her arms.

She stares back. "Is it bear season?"

"No," he says carefully and crosses his fingers behind his back.

* * *

He burns his fingers on the lighter, and the metholated spirits make him cough. Molecules and smells and tastes, all rushing around his brain and he can see her, across from him, watching the fire. Her mouth is parted, and he looks away.

Clouds are rolling in, and it's still raining. She's shivering cold, arms holding her tremors back, so he pulls her to cradle against him and she's soft.

Or maybe it's his coat.

She shakes again, and it's somehow the right thing to do, run his fingers down her hair, curl his hand into the strands. Her head is heavy on his hearts. He thinks of her head on his shoulder and then his chest and then his belly and then stops thinking.

The flame flickers and he bends so he can talk into her ear. "I know a place," he says cheerily, "where it never stops raining."

"Yeah," she replies. "I think I live there."

The water boils and she reaches to tear open the packet with her teeth. "You could use the knife," he suggests but she play-growls at him, teeth bared, hands curved into small claws.

"Don't mock the wolf," she lectures, and doesn't ask why his fingertips tighten around her ribs, like they want to find her heart and keep it.

The fire keeps going, and suddenly the yellow seems too gold.

* * *

The downpour stops and he has no excuse to hold her anymore, so untangles himself and finishes dinner.

He forgot her bowl and his fork and her cup, so they share. He keeps remembering her tongue was on the thing _inside his mouth_, and then choking and then she gives him the water which doesn't help.

"You alright?" she asks softly, and he thinks then, how her toes would curl into his sheets, and maybe how her nails would make little crescents on the skin of his back.

It is still cold but he is warm.

* * *

The dusk steals in, her lipgloss wears off and she keeps his coat. It looks ridiculous, hanging down onto the ground, sleeves drowning her arms.

When she sits down across from him, he knows what's coming. The talking and crying and blaming, the '_I wish_' and _'my fault'_.

Domestics and smeared eyeliner, sniffles and quiet, gasped breaths. And he's sorry, isn't he, isn't that why he took her here? He's _sorry_.

For the not-quite-queen and snogging and thinking about possibly shagging. For Mickey in his tucked away universe, standing in the shoes of a dead man, and for ruining her for ordinary life.

But Rose smiles at him, her issues under her skin. Or maybe she's dealt with it silently, like he used to do, nightmares chased away to live deep inside of him.

"I have marshmallows," she says simply, and hands him the pink ones because she knows they're his favourite.

There is surviving and there is living, and he doesn't know what he'll do when she's gone and he'll only ever be doing one.

* * *

When it is dark and pinpoints of light start appearing above them, he lies back and doesn't mind about the wet and his back. There is something so eternal about Earth's skies, so calm and immovable. He can see the constellations that were the same eons ago, the myths written into them that won't ever change.

She curls next to him, and he finds her hand. His folds arounds hers perfectly, stroking across her knuckles. She exhales.

"Pretty, aren't they," he murmurs. She hums in agreement, and he feels that fierce urge to talk, the one that rushes up when the silence is saying far too much.

But he chokes it down, imagines all the places he knows she's going to adore, adventures they'll have and then talk about forever after. He wonders how many they have left, if his allotted time of tentative happiness is ticking down.

He squeezes her hand, and then points at one brightly burning star. "We've been there," he says, and doesn't care if it's a lie or the truth or somewhere in between.

* * *

"I'm cold," she says eventually, and stands shakily. He can see her breath in the weak moonlight, her features outlined beautifully. He wants to sketch her, but won't do her justice, anyway. Can't capture that glint in her eye, the queer little invitation in her mouth.

He hauls himself up, wipes the grass off of his arse and then follows her wordlessly to the tent.

He is too tall, and gets stuck in the flap, head threatening to collapse the whole thing. She laughs at him before helping, snorting when his hair gets caught in the zipper.

Finally he is lying down on his back, wondering idly if this will be a night where he sleeps, with her so close. The sleeping bag barely holds them both, anyway, her leg in between his, arm under his neck. It's awkward and shaky, her whispering apologies and his sharp inhales when their hips align.

She stops when she's comfortable, a warm weight on him, pressing him down to earth. He tries to shut his eyes, to enjoy the casual intimacy she's flinging towards him, but can only think of tilting his head up, of dragging her body up and bracing his elbows on the mildly filthy groundsheet.

And really, hasn't it been coming to this anyway? He flirts and she teases, but he's always, always wanted more than...than he deserves.

He has no right, really, to steal her heart as well as the rest of her.

But he's already sitting up, already supporting her head and shushing her question. He presses his mouth to hers and neither of them are surprised.

She kisses him back, open mouth and clicking teeth and time stutters, his eyes slammed shut, his fingers reaching for her skin. They clamber out of the sleeping bag and she shivers as he turns and leans over her, breath hot on her ear.

"Let me?" he murmurs shakily against her temple. "I...I won't hurt-"

She tugs up his shirt, scratching her nails up his chest and leaving fire burning down in him, a quiet sort of desperation that leaves him with the certainty he won't go slow, _can't_.

So they don't.

* * *

He thinks maybe she'll be quiet and distant, afterwards. Or perhaps he will. But it's remarkably easy, rolling to fit themselves back together into the sleeping bag, her shy smiles gazing just south of his face.

"Alright?" he asks, clearing the hair off her cheek. She nods then yawns.

"Cold," she murmurs, but she's gone already, tucked safely into him. He can't keep her safe forever, not the way he wants to, away from the monsters and the pain.

But he can have this, at least.

* * *

The morning is crisp and clear, dawning with her sprawled lazily across him, bare skin on his. He traces Gallifreyan on her spine, symbols he will be the only one to know.

"Stay a little while," she breathes, and he will, he will.

He likes this universe so much better when she's here.


End file.
